Spin doctors: How PR trumps trust in modern medicine

Seeking to expand the market for cigarettes in the 1920s, the American Tobacco Company solicited the aid of public relations mastermind Edward L. Bernays. He proposed to target women, who were still stigmatised for smoking, by organising a brigade of models to march across Manhattan showing their liberation by puffing on "torches of freedom".

We might be tempted to dismiss the campaign's success as an instance of jazz-age naivety. But as bioethicist Carl Elliott shows in White Coat, Black Hat, Bernays's strategy guides the tactics used by pharmaceutical firms today.

What is most impressive, and disturbing, about this book is its
description of the scope of manipulation routinely undertaken by drug
companies, and its cumulative effect on public health. Taken on their
own, many of the details are not especially surprising, such as drug
reps buttering up doctors with doughnuts and tote bags. Indeed,
Elliott's tendency to dwell on these specifics, familiar to anyone who
reads a newspaper, undermines his more worthy effort to show how their
interrelationship amounts to "a medical system in which deception is not
just tolerated but rewarded".

Over the past generation,
medicine has evolved from a profession based on trust into a business
with enormous profit potential. Manipulation is rewarded because it is
rewarding, and, as Elliott writes, "nobody is willing to concede that
trust may no longer be warranted". It is now the domain of Edward L.
Bernays.

Imagine if the money drug companies went into finding a cure for the disease not just the symptoms.

I'm not a conspiracist but I do believe they want to keep people sick to a certain extent...

KW
on September 29, 2010 4:07 PM

@Sean

What is the basis for your assertion that drug companies target the symptoms instead of the disease? The symptoms are a result of the disease and modern treatments cover the spectrum from being purely pallative to completely abolishing the disease state.

Make good decisions even with incomplete information: Investors never have all the data they need before they put their money at risk. Investing is all about decision-making with imperfect information. You will never have all the info you need. What matters is what you do with the information you have. Do your homework and focus on the facts that matter most in any investing situation.